Bologna

Oh, I forgot to mention fences. Like those around the service area on the motorway. Our friends at hitchwiki had left us clues on how to leave Bologna, so we took a bus out of town, investing all our remaining money spare 30 cents or so. What we didn’t know was that the area was under construction, so a lot had changed, and we couldn’t see a (legal) way of getting into the rest area. Also, it was hot. And our backpacks heavy. And then, a car came out the gate and its driver told us he’d call the police if he caught us entering.

We backed off and he followed us in his car, gosh.

– “Where are you, going, anyway?”

– “We want to get towards Modena, then Milan”

– “Ah, well, then you’re on the wrong side anyway, this one goes to Florence. If you want to get to Modena, take this underpass, walk around the fence, and there’ll be an entrance”

– “…Okay…”

He was right. We didn’t quite believe it, the way all around the fence was long, we nearly gave up – but we had a ukulele and could sing and hope we’d see some figs on the way and ultimately, we slipped through a gap right into a super-busy service station.

By that time, it was already 5pm, also because we’d spent all morning cooking up random leftover food in the hostel kitchen (you have to eat, right?). After some starting difficulties, we got a ride by a Neapolitan lorry driver, then by a guy driving Italian branded goods over to rich people in Switzerland, who got us up to the Swiss border. We watched all the full cars (“I mean, it’s okay that people want children, but why do they also have to take them on holiday??”) and the sunset and thought about where to put up our tent. Before we had to, however, we met a young German couple coming back from Rimini. We spent most of the night together, until they left us about 70km before our final destination. It was something inhumane like 4am, but we quickly found a really sweet Turkish-born truck driver who brought us closer still. Still in darkness, we asked in a car that turned out to be going to a games convention.

Since my house wasn’t exactly on their way, they dropped us off in another suburb and we had a lovely sunrise walk to then join (or rather: wake up) my family for breakfast.

That journey is over, and incredibly, this part of summer, too. I’ll be back in Oxford in a week or so and there will be no time for travels for the whole year, until that degree’s done. Well… I don’t really believe it (yet).

For now, a song including the line “This is how the summer ends”. Not quite coincidentally also the song we sang during that last Italian sunset.

Lina and me started off profiting from the cheap Italian trains again (after, of course, having another ice-cream in Jesi for breakfast) and arrived in Bologna in the afternoon. As those things go, it was evening by the time we had visited the city and felt like we could move on, and, you might guess, we realised that it was getting kind of too late* to hitch out. Since it was our last evening in Italy, we felt like we should treat ourselves to something, and, more importantly, finally try that street music thing. Bologna is fantastic in terms of acoustic, since all the sound bounces off the arcades you find everywhere in the city centre. We had fun, and some other people seemed to enjoy it, too, some even put some coins in our orange hat.

After a short while, we realised that we might want to find a place to sleep (before one of the single men about could offer to, ugh, host us), but that was no trouble, since we had money and internet and felt like filthy rich kids. We went to a hostel and got the offer of taking a private two-bed room for only 2 Euros more than what we’d pay for two dorm beds. We opened our wallets wide and pulled out the 50€ he was asking for – we had just about enough. Then, he asked for just one Euro more, taxes. We looked at the heap of coins in front of us, and at our empty purses. After a moment, Lina opened her bag and fumbled around until she produced a certain hat still containing the circa 4€ we’d collected before. Hah!

We felt less rich, but daring (since we knew we wouldn’t take out any more money before reaching home). Moreover, we took a thorough shower and stained the brilliant white towels with our dirty feet.

____

*Okay, it’s never too late for anything. But standing on a road for the whole night is decidedly less fun than sleeping.

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